PRESS RELEASE
For immediate release
AROUND THE NEXT CORNER
It happened quite suddenly. There she was, stuck in her kitchen cookware cabinet, poking at the obstinate family cat with her grout-scrubbing toothbrush in an effort to evict him from her wok, and Deena Munger realizes she's not just stuck in her cabinet, she's stuck in her life. Wife of nearly twenty-five years, full-time mother of three for twenty, Deena feels suddenly. . .invisible. The enormous, imperious cat Hairy suddenly symbolizes all that is wrong in Deena's life--her stale and eroding marriage, her obsessive need to clean, her undeniable urge to over-parent her teens, even as they run from her grasp. "I am a dog person trapped in a cat existence." She impulsively volunteers to raise a guide dog for a year for K-9 Eyes for the Blind, and with a sometimes wild and wayward yellow Labrador retriever puppy named Heloise, Deena steps out into the world again. Deena discovers that, with a dog by her side, she is anything but invisible and she begins to see a new path. The indomitable Heloise shows her that on the trail, and in life, there is always something great around the next corner.
Elizabeth Wrenn's poignant and charming debut novel, Around the Next Corner will be published in trade paperback by NAL/Penguin, in bookstores June 6, 2006 (06/06/06!) According to the Chinese calendar, this is the Year of the Dog, and judging by the recent chart-topping success of books featuring a dog, and the billions spent annually by Americans on their pets, it may well be the Dog Millenium! And this charming debut novel is poised to be the next big dog book.
In a warm and wise first-person voice, Elizabeth Wrenn explores with humor and grace the biology, circumstance and choice involved in contining a decades-long marriage, the pushme-pullyou of parenting teenagers, and the frustration and bliss of life with a dog.
Wrenn has been a freelance writer for nearly thirty years, writing for both local and national newspapers, and publishing essays in diverse publications, from The Christian Science Monitor to Runner's World and more. She has written training brochures for Purina and formerly worked at a Humane Society as an adoption counselor. But it was as research for this novel that she volunteered to raise a guide dog puppy
"It was by far the most demanding and rewarding research I've ever done for a writing project!" she says. "And as every dog owner knows, it is always a question as to who is training whom! I expected the training process to inform the novel, but it was amazing how writing the novel informed the training process. My relationship with Lucca [the dog Wrenn raised] became more than either research or volunteer work. As Lucca grew, changed, rebelled, learned, bonded and transformed, so did Deena, and so did I. It was a never-ending microcosm/macrocosm view of growth and change. It was a marvelous and edifying experience all around."
(For addtional info and quotes on the writing of ATNC, please click the Newsletter page above.)
AGENT/PUBLICITY
Elizabeth Wrenn is represented by Marcy Posner of Sterling Lord Literistic,
65 Bleecker Street
New York, NY 10012
phone: 212-780-6050
marcyposner@sll.com
Publicity and interview requests should be sent to this website email:
readermail@elizabethwrenn.com
Please copy all requests to:
jennifer.puma@us.penguingroup.com
(both links are at top of this page)
Mailing address:
Jennifer Puma
Penguin Publicity Dept.
375 Hudson St.
New York, NY 10014
212.366.2423
